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Warp Factory
by milobrandt
Warp Factory is an automation puzzle game in which the player must build factories to produce various shapes and patterns, as well as to perform more dynamic tasks. It features a system of portals that allow one to cut apart and reconnect space in paradoxical - and productive - ways.
Works on Windows 10 or Mac (OS 10.14 or higher)
(Also, as another social link, we have a Discord server: https://discord.gg/yWgEqynPYt)
* Various UX improvements - ability to move sections of the factory, view & edit how portals are linked, clearer visual indicators for inputs/outputs
* More puzzles - possibly featuring some new mechanics (e.g. gluing pieces together or building objects by subtractive methods).
* Improvements to graphics - updated assets, particle effects for welding, improved lighting model
* Modding support
Roasts
human-J0315C 3 years ago
Mechanics Tutorial/Learning CurveReally interesting game - it sucked up half my morning, so there's a vote of confidence for you :)
Here are a few things that need work:
1. The "join" tool seems like extra work, and doesn't add to the fun for me. It feels like a distraction from the main goal. If it's essential in later levels to have free-movable parts, maybe there's a better way to accomplish that dynamic.
2. I felt like the learning curve jumped much higher after the first few levels. For players who don't have experience with games like this, It would be nice to have quite a lot more very dumbed-down intro levels that could be skipped by more advanced players who already "get it" coming in.
3. The wiring system, while a cool idea and pretty essential, is hard to understand at times. I quickly found myself just randomly hooking up wires until something worked. Maybe it needs to be simplified somehow, or have more fool-proof documentation for how each tile should be wired up, available in wiring mode.
Overall great work!
Here are a few things that need work:
1. The "join" tool seems like extra work, and doesn't add to the fun for me. It feels like a distraction from the main goal. If it's essential in later levels to have free-movable parts, maybe there's a better way to accomplish that dynamic.
2. I felt like the learning curve jumped much higher after the first few levels. For players who don't have experience with games like this, It would be nice to have quite a lot more very dumbed-down intro levels that could be skipped by more advanced players who already "get it" coming in.
3. The wiring system, while a cool idea and pretty essential, is hard to understand at times. I quickly found myself just randomly hooking up wires until something worked. Maybe it needs to be simplified somehow, or have more fool-proof documentation for how each tile should be wired up, available in wiring mode.
Overall great work!
milobrandt 3 years ago
Thanks for the feedback!1. That's a good point - I certainly had noticed I spend a lot of time joining things. I'll experiment with that - the obvious thing would be to just make placed blocks join by default to their neighbors and have that behavior easily toggleable for when one needs to be precise (which is very often in the later levels). If that turns out to be too cumbersome, I could also try making blocks placed in one mouse drag join to each other (or combine these two ideas somehow)
2. Yeah, I'm trying to figure that element of design out - I definitely want to keep a fast track open for confident players, but not force others to face an impossible difficulty curve; I think I ultimately might beef up the Practicum chapter a bit and add something between the Practicum & Assembly I where the requirements of the player are something between "understands portals + welders" and "understands everything" - perhaps focusing on individual active components in the way the tutorial does, but letting the player work solutions out for themselves.
3. That might partially be improved by addressing (2) - the idea of adding documentation in wiring mode is sensible. Perhaps I can come up with some way to make the operation of electricity more visible to the player when the factory is running - having wiring running invisibly does not help the player understand.
